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Short Beacon. Authors:. Introduction. TGah is investigating transmission rates as low as ~100Kbps At such low rates, even frames with 10s of bytes become very long Beacon frames typically seen in 11g/n networks are > 100Bytes
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Short Beacon Authors:
Introduction • TGah is investigating transmission rates as low as ~100Kbps • At such low rates, even frames with 10s of bytes become very long • Beacon frames typically seen in 11g/n networks are > 100Bytes • Beacon is sent periodically and may occupy a significant amount of time • need be sent at lowest rate to reach BSS edge • In this presentation we address the design of a short beacon frame • Propose to add a short beacon concept to the Spec Framework Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
Beacon • Typical beacons in 802.11 BSSs can be > 100Bytes long • Found beacons of ~230bytes in typical enterprise environment • Frame body includes mandatory fields/Information Elements • Timestamp (8B), Beacon Interval (2B), Capability (2B), SSID (2-34B), Supported Rates (3-11B) • And many optional elements • >100Bytes beacon at lowest transmission rate (100Kbps) requires > 8ms transmission time • Assuming current typical beacon interval of 100ms this is > 8% overhead • The Proposal is to define a shortened beacon that carries only the essential info • No need to burden the network with additional overhead Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
Short Beacon • A short beacon allows for reduced medium occupancy • and reduced power consumption for TX at AP and RX at STAs • Or, for the same overhead as a ‘normal’ beacon, allows for shorter Beacon Intervals, improving synchronization and power save at the STAs • Asynchronous STAs waking up at a random time can get in synch quickly • Primary functions of a beacon are • Advertize AP presence • Synchronize the STAs • Know the minimal necessary set of information to make a transmission • Indications on power save (TIM) • Other information is not essential and can be retrieved at association, from a normal ‘full’ beacon or with a probe request • The short beacon proposed in these slides is not meant to displace the normal beacon • AP may e.g. send a normal ‘full’ beacon every N short beacons • Short beacon is an additional frame for optimized operation Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
Short Beacon content • Following fields in the beacon frame MAC header are removed • Duration: unnecessary • DA: unnecessary, beacon is always broadcast • BSSID: same as SA, just keep one of the two • Sequence control: useless for a Beacon • Includes only essential Info • Compressed SSID (Max 8Bytes) • TSF: 4 LSBytes of TSF are enough for synchronization purposes (see appendix) • ‘Change sequence’: 1Byte, updated every time management info changes: • Alert STAs to get on synch with new Info, by either listening to the (optional) IE in this beacon , by listening to a Full beacon or through probe request • Information Field • Carries basic essential Info, such as BW, Security support, TX power constraints etc… • Optional Information in the short beacon • Additional optional Information elements (may restrict usage to specific IEs) • In some cases it is more efficient to send TIM info within the beacon instead than in a separate frame • Indication of Duration to the next full beacon: • Informs the STA of the arrival time of the next full beacon. Enables STAs to go to sleep until the next full beacon • Targeting a basic version of a short beacon to be < 20Bytes Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
Updating Network Information • After associating, the STA knows all the necessary Info and can simply rely on short beacons for synchronization • If network configuration change can be communicated by using an IE, such an IE may be included in the short beacon • When there are changes in network configuration that cannot be communicated using the short beacons, the following options may be used • Signal that network information has changed using the “Change Sequence” field in the short beacon. STA can wake up to decode to full beacon at the full beacon arrival time • STAs may also retrieve updated information using probe request Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
Straw poll Do you support the introduction in the spec framework of a short beacon frame format? Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
Straw poll 2 Do you agree with the content of the short beacon as proposed in slide 5 of this presentation? Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
Motion The Specification framework shall provide support for a new frame format for a short beacon; content is TBD.
Appendix Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc
TSF 4 LSBs of the full TSF. is Sufficient for maintaining synchronization • With a 4 byte time stamp rollover occurs every ~71 minutes • With a +/- 20 ppm drift for the clock • to drift by 30 min (~71/2) will take 1.4 years • A sensor node can maintain time sync with its AP if it checks a short beacon as rarely as once a day Santosh Abraham, Qualcomm Inc